Agreed, very slick. The only part that I think is confusing is the inclusion of a 1/4" jack in the logo. I think of guitars and headphones and not telephones when I see that, which moves me further away to the meaning of "phono" that the site needs to convey.
We use a tiny Flash movie to capture the microphone, since Javascript can't do that part. We'll be adding an option for a Java applet later, and once HTML5 has microphone support, we'll get that in there, too.
I called myself and I could talk on my phone and hear it in the browser, but there was no audio picked up on my laptop mic to go back to the phone. I'm assuming it's still being worked on - interesting execution though!
Claiming it's a "simple JQuery plugin" is disingenuous at best. The critical component is Flash. JQuery is merely the wrapper around it. Without Flash, the JavaScript is worthless, and the application cannot work.
Any guess as to when the <device> element (or api - Berjon vs Hixie?) will be adopted by a shipping browser so we can have this all-js microphone (and camera) access without a flash shim?
My bet is Android webkit first (ericcson closed source webkit proof of concept already exists); a timeline would be nice though.
"If you're developing from a local file system (i.e. not a web server) you'll need to edit your Flash security settings. Select "Edit locations" > "Add location" > "Browse for folder" and select the the folder that contains your HTML files."
Nuff said about what? Yes, this has a dependency on Flash (soon to be on Java instead optionally) but so does EVERYTHING that interacts with video or audio devices on the host operating system. This is why Google Talk, Voice in Gmail, etc require the google a/v plugin to be installed, and it's the same reason that this requires Flash.
If you don't like it, go lobby the <device> in HTML5 committee.
I tested it with my GV US number and it is working very well. Great job. Too bad it doesn't work on iPad because of the flash applet. (Java wouldn'd help either) But that's nothing you can do something about.
For now, Phono works with a Voxeo backend (either the enterprise stuff or Tropo, the cloud telephony API). The intent is to allow a developer to create their own backend platform that works with Phono. We'll release the spec for that once the API has settled in and we're sure there's no significant changes needed.
Tropo's pricing is at http://tropo.com/pricing/ and start at 3 cents per minute. Voxeo's other products are based on amount and type of usage and you'd want to contact our sales guys to get a quote. sales@voxeo.com should work for that.
The Phono guys were great in helping me integrate this on http://pitchpower.appspot.com. There was a small bug on their side & they fixed it in a few hours.
I don't really have time to continue develop pitchpower right now, but I couldn't resist integrating Phono when I saw the announcement here. All in all took less than an hour, so worth it. Back to real work now.
31 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 65.6 ms ] threadMight be good if the in-page demo mentioned the limited (US-only) aspect as it wasn't obvious to me that it didn't work with my UK number.
It's using Flash but it's still a jQuery plugin. Perhaps incomplete but not inaccurate.
We're heading an HTML 5 working group on voice in the browser, and once HTML5 has mic support, Phono will use it.
My bet is Android webkit first (ericcson closed source webkit proof of concept already exists); a timeline would be nice though.
http://dev.w3.org/2009/dap/camera/
With any luck, some browsers will form a defacto standard that solves the outstanding questions long before the HTML5 group finishes.
'nuff said...
If you don't like it, go lobby the <device> in HTML5 committee.
How about a ballpark estimate of what it might cost to actually use this in production?
Tropo's pricing is at http://tropo.com/pricing/ and start at 3 cents per minute. Voxeo's other products are based on amount and type of usage and you'd want to contact our sales guys to get a quote. sales@voxeo.com should work for that.
I don't really have time to continue develop pitchpower right now, but I couldn't resist integrating Phono when I saw the announcement here. All in all took less than an hour, so worth it. Back to real work now.